BlogFerret » Site News http://midnightferret.com .: Don't go in the water! :. Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:13:47 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 This Blog Needs a Makeover! http://midnightferret.com/2010/03/03/this-blog-needs-a-makeover/ http://midnightferret.com/2010/03/03/this-blog-needs-a-makeover/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:19:23 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/?p=164 In the past, I’ve posted about focus, and then promptly and thoroughly failed to get some.

This is ok. Well, at least, I’m in a good place with that right now. Actually, I just wanted to let you guys know a few little things about my life, and sort of rev everyone (including myself) up for [...]]]> In the past, I’ve posted about focus, and then promptly and thoroughly failed to get some.

This is ok. Well, at least, I’m in a good place with that right now. Actually, I just wanted to let you guys know a few little things about my life, and sort of rev everyone (including myself) up for a few changes.

As some of you know, my life as taken a turn for the geek again recently. Now, while this turn really just involves an entry-level job at an engineering firm, it has forced me to re-examine a lot of my goals and my life overall. I have no idea what this really means, but at least I’m in shape to examine my life. That’s always a plus.

In the next few weeks I plan to do a little remodeling around the site, and creating some different sorts of posts from what I normally offer here. Does this mean a total absence of whining and ranting is imminent? Not at all! This is still my personal website, and I am free to post whatever I wish. Hooray! I’m just thinking of organizing it differently.

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2010/03/03/this-blog-needs-a-makeover/feed/ 0 Tiny Update http://midnightferret.com/2009/03/24/tiny-update/ http://midnightferret.com/2009/03/24/tiny-update/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:12:44 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/?p=124 I was chastised this weekend for not updating the blog, but all I could come up with was a really good recipe for pulled pork in the crockpot. I posted it on my recipe blog.

I also added my other “in progress” beer. I will try to think of something interesting to post tomorrow or Thursday. [...]]]> I was chastised this weekend for not updating the blog, but all I could come up with was a really good recipe for pulled pork in the crockpot. I posted it on my recipe blog.

I also added my other “in progress” beer. I will try to think of something interesting to post tomorrow or Thursday. I like to do things on Thursdays because I don’t have to teach in the evening.

Hmm. When I start thinking about my own beer recipes, will I have to put them in the recipe blog or in this one? Neither of them even have a “beer” category! What a travesty! A travesty, I tell you! Anyway, I’m a long way off from making my own beer recipes.

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2009/03/24/tiny-update/feed/ 0 A Bit of Site News http://midnightferret.com/2009/01/04/a-bit-of-site-news/ http://midnightferret.com/2009/01/04/a-bit-of-site-news/#comments Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:58:42 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/?p=105 I have updated this website to WordPress 2.7 and also installed the “Subscribe to Comments” plugin. Now you can leave a comment and be notified if someone replies! Nifty, huh?

You may also enjoy:My Blog Made Money!New Site Section UpSo I'm Back]]> I have updated this website to WordPress 2.7 and also installed the “Subscribe to Comments” plugin. Now you can leave a comment and be notified if someone replies! Nifty, huh?

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2009/01/04/a-bit-of-site-news/feed/ 1 Relevance http://midnightferret.com/2008/07/30/relevance/ http://midnightferret.com/2008/07/30/relevance/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:33:42 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/?p=92 I’ve decided to try something new with my website. Instead of posting random blather in a stream of consciousness style, I’m going to keep to a regular schedule and post about specific things. Novel idea for me, no?

I’m aware that my life lacks a lot of focus. I complain because I don’t reach the “lesser” [...]]]> I’ve decided to try something new with my website. Instead of posting random blather in a stream ofHe\'s a REAL nowhere man. consciousness style, I’m going to keep to a regular schedule and post about specific things. Novel idea for me, no?

I’m aware that my life lacks a lot of focus. I complain because I don’t reach the “lesser” goals in my life, but I am pretty unfocused and disorganized unless I have something big on the line (i.e. graduate school). I also seem to let some people influence me where I wouldn’t normally be influenced if I were more certain of myself. I feel as if at 31, I really should go ahead and attempt to figure out exactly who I am and exactly what I want. Now, a weblog isn’t really going to help me do this, but if I work on structure and focus in this small way, maybe I can see how it works on a larger scale. In any case, I’d really like to improve my writing in an online medium.

Otherwise, I’ll have to start putting “Verbose and Directionless” beneath my name on my business cards.

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2008/07/30/relevance/feed/ 1 Finally Fixed the Colors & New Plugins! http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/09/finally-fixed-the-colors-new-plugins/ http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/09/finally-fixed-the-colors-new-plugins/#comments Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:03:26 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/09/finally-fixed-the-colors-new-plugins/ I just thought I’d mention, in case no one noticed, that I finally fixed the colors and pictures here and I also installed a groovy new progress plugin. It is called Progressfly, and as you can see, it uses css to generate progress meters for whatever you want. I was going to put James‘s knitted [...]]]> I just thought I’d mention, in case no one noticed, that I finally fixed the colors and pictures here and I also installed a groovy new progress plugin. It is called Progressfly, and as you can see, it uses css to generate progress meters for whatever you want. I was going to put James‘s knitted socks in there, but I think I need to make some prioritized categories: somehow it would seem wrong to put a pair of knitted socks in the same column as my MA Degree. Or perhaps I’m simply egotistical.

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/09/finally-fixed-the-colors-new-plugins/feed/ 0 Focus? What’s Focus? Do I Have It? http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/03/focus-whats-focus-do-i-have-it/ http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/03/focus-whats-focus-do-i-have-it/#comments Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:28:47 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/03/focus-whats-focus-do-i-have-it/ I do seem to be feeling much better. I stopped posting in October only to begin again yesterday, and here I am posting again! I was browsing yesterday and today looking for configuration instructions for a plugin I installed in October and promptly forgot about. (More on this later when I actually use it to [...]]]> A magnifying glass!I do seem to be feeling much better. I stopped posting in October only to begin again yesterday, and here I am posting again! I was browsing yesterday and today looking for configuration instructions for a plugin I installed in October and promptly forgot about. (More on this later when I actually use it to generate content.) I read an article about how to bring readers to one’s blog with an aim to make money blogging, and the author insisted that one’s blog have “focus.”

This blog, when I post to it, is just my personal weblog. Should it have focus? I suppose the real question is that if and when I begin to post regular entries to the blog, should it then have “focus”?

At any rate, I don’t know if I am necessarily a very focussed person.  As Candide always said, “If this were the best of all possible worlds,” then I would post here 3 times a week or more. These posts would concern the following subjects:

  • thoughts about current events in my life, school, 19th century English novels etc.
  • book reviews (both scholarly and pleasure reading)
  • movie/TV reviews
  • board game reviews
  • restaurant reviews (although this would be better applied if I still lived in N.O. or really anywhere but Monroe, LA)
  • gadgets
  • recipes (I really like food)
  • knitting: projects, equipment, ideas, etc.
  • Renaissance festivals

That’s a pretty hefty list. I have made a separate blog for recipes, but that’s because I had intended to use it somewhat as a database. I don’t know if it’s failing or not. There aren’t many entries in it, but that is because I get a lot of recipes from a friend of mine. Her recipes are handed down for several generations and she might not appreciate it if the recipes went public. I haven’t figured out what to do about that, if anything.

The other items on the list of blog content are all interests of mine. I thought about making a separate Ren Fest blog, but until I can attend a fest and then actually put the pictures up in my gallery, for starters, I don’t think I can maintain something like that. Of course it would help if I had my own camera.  Still it would be cool to make a Ren Fest Blog – with articles, contributions from readers, photos and links! Might have to put that in a “list of things to do before I die.”

At any rate, my interests are pretty broad. I didn’t even put anything in about my pets – ferrets, a bird, some hermit crabs, and 3 betta fish – but that would qualify as an interest and I may one day write enough about pet-related issues to make a category for the posts.

I suppose I’ve rambled full circle here: the big question is whether I want a large audience of regular readers and/or to make money off of my weblog. Honestly, I’m not certain I want either of those things. I am already paranoid that something I say here might get me fired from a future job, or cause one of my very few friends start to hate me. Do I really need a bunch of people reading this thing?  On the one hand, it would feed my ego, but on the other, it might just be trouble :P .

It also might be nice if (like last March) someone liked my review of a book/movie/board game enough to click on the Amazon link and buy it, but that’s just because I am a book junkie and need Amazon associates income to help feed my addiction.  So perhaps I don’t really want to make money here, either.

Still, that makes me sound like I created my web presence just to take up webspace. That’s not particularly cool. I must be getting older – when I was young and idealistic, I believed in self-expression for its own sake. It was only after I hit my mid-twenties that I realized how tiresome self-expression for its own sake can really be. (See goth poetry websites that allow user submissions. Heck, see any goth poetry website…)

It is a testament to my lack of focus that I have rambled on for several paragraphs and still failed to decide if I need a focus here or not, much less what that focus should be. I do know one thing, though: I’m a decent writer with a fairly interesting viewpoint. If I posted here regularly and at least provided semi-interesting content, I could definitely provide an awesome procrastination tool. Who doesn’t love to procrastinate?

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2008/02/03/focus-whats-focus-do-i-have-it/feed/ 3 My Blog Made Money! http://midnightferret.com/2007/07/31/my-blog-made-money/ http://midnightferret.com/2007/07/31/my-blog-made-money/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:58:40 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/2007/07/31/my-blog-made-money/ Guess what, guys? My blog made money! Well, it made Amazon referral fees. It was for the second quarter, so it was in April.  I made $5.00!  How exciting is that?  Thanks to my faithful readers and random wandering googlers. I get paid in Amazon gift certificates, so it has to reach a certain amount [...]]]> Guess what, guys? My blog made money! Well, it made Amazon referral fees. It was for the second quarter, so it was in April.  I made $5.00!  How exciting is that?  Thanks to my faithful readers and random wandering googlers. I get paid in Amazon gift certificates, so it has to reach a certain amount before I actually get to use it for anything, but hey, I was pretty gratified that after several years of being an Amazon associate I finally made money!

I usually only link to products (mostly books) that I want or like, but maybe I’ll stick some random-ish Amazon links next to my Google ads on the sidebar.  I’m not worried too much about being too mercenary, because no one clicks the Google ads – which is okay, really. My website has always really been sort of an experiment to see what happens if one quietly goes about his or her business on the internet.  Over the past few years,  some interesting things have happened, including being hacked and having really neat commenters!

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2007/07/31/my-blog-made-money/feed/ 2 New Site Section Up http://midnightferret.com/2007/06/10/new-site-section-up/ http://midnightferret.com/2007/06/10/new-site-section-up/#comments Sun, 10 Jun 2007 19:17:43 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/2007/06/10/new-site-section-up/ Hi guys,

In honor of slightly elevated traffic lately (i.e. two of you who seldom pass by have both let me know you’ve been reading!) I decided to finally sort out the recipe section of this blog.  I decided that that only format for my recipes that I can stand to use is actually another blog.  [...]]]> Hi guys,

In honor of slightly elevated traffic lately (i.e. two of you who seldom pass by have both let me know you’ve been reading!) I decided to finally sort out the recipe section of this blog.  I decided that that only format for my recipes that I can stand to use is actually another blog.  Now, this will probably pose problems related to ease of use and sorting via cooking times, etc, but since my cooking isn’t really an exact science, I don’t have to worry too much about that.

Notice the new “recipes” section on the navigation bar above.  When you click it, you will notice that it takes you to an actual recipe blog that has actual recipes you can view on it. A far cry from my abortive experiments with recipe softwares, no? I’m still working out a system for posting pics, but since food photographs so awfully anyway I’m not too worried.  I think I have a nice piccy of a King Cake somewhere, though… heheh.

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2007/06/10/new-site-section-up/feed/ 0 Test of Avantgo Palm Post http://midnightferret.com/2007/04/02/test-of-avantgo-palm-post/ http://midnightferret.com/2007/04/02/test-of-avantgo-palm-post/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:51:20 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/2007/04/02/test-of-avantgo-palm-post/ I finally decided to try this. This post was created using Avantgo and my faithful Sony Clie T615C.

You may also enjoy:Chapter the Second: In Which Life Ain't So BadMy Blog Made Money!"Cajun" vs. Louisiana (vs. New Orleans)]]> I finally decided to try this. This post was created using Avantgo and my faithful Sony Clie T615C.

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]]> http://midnightferret.com/2007/04/02/test-of-avantgo-palm-post/feed/ 0 So I’m Back http://midnightferret.com/2006/05/04/so-im-back/ http://midnightferret.com/2006/05/04/so-im-back/#comments Thu, 04 May 2006 23:12:25 +0000 midnightferret http://midnightferret.com/2006/05/04/so-im-back/ Back after 42geeks.com was hacked by malicious little twinks. I have installed WordPress 2.0. I will soon install Gallery.

I don’t know if I like my new host because it doesn’t let me choose the names of my databases and email/ftp user accounts. It generates some random string. It’s kind of a [...]]]> Back after 42geeks.com was hacked by malicious little twinks. I have installed WordPress 2.0. I will soon install Gallery.

I don’t know if I like my new host because it doesn’t let me choose the names of my databases and email/ftp user accounts. It generates some random string. It’s kind of a pain in the ass.

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